Celebrating International Women’s Day – Kim Va Lim

Posted onMonday April 24th, 2017byJason Leite

At Baffinland, we have some of the most experienced and inspirational women in the mining industry. For International Women’s Day, we asked some of them to share their experiences about what it’s like working in the industry, and their advice for young professionals and women interested in a job in the mining industry. We will continue to share their stories in the coming weeks. Kim Va Lim, Principal Advisor of Financial Planning and Analysis
Kim Va Lim is our principal advisor of financial planning and analysis. She is a CPA, CA with over 10 years of experience in progressive finance and accounting roles. She began her career as a co-op Student from the University of Waterloo, where she obtained a degree in Masters of Accounting. From there, she went on to becoming an Audit Manager at Deloitte for several years. Her mining experience led her to her next role as a Controller for junior public mining companies where she spent four years leading a team in a technical financial reporting capacity. Her latest role was at Enbridge Gas Distribution Ltd., where she decided to round out her reporting experience with a financial planning and analysis role.
As a woman in male-dominated workplaces, she feels that she has had to work harder than her male peers in order to stand out and be recognized. She points to women in leadership roles, as sources of inspiration but recognizes the struggle to achieve what these women had achieved. As a minority and a woman, Kim knew that her chances at growing her career was going to be a challenging one. She points to her continued self-belief, commitment to being better, and a general passion for her work as the keys to her continued success.
Her advice to other women is as follows: get a mentor (female or otherwise), trust your instincts, have confidence in yourself, and always understand what and why you’re doing something. If something doesn’t make sense, there might be a good reason for it or a good reason for change.